The Crepe Myrtle tree in my front yard has blossomed in bold profusion of bright pink flowers. They were not there in the months before. They go and they come back. Oh but when the goings or comings break the normal expectations of life, with bitter pain, then sorrow shatters my heart. My phone calls were not answered, neither were the text messages returned, I did not think of death, I thought my friend had traveled to Texas, to visit her family. No wonder Paul the apostle in the Bible calls this abrupt severance of life “the last enemy.”

I hate death, even the death of Sevoug, our darling black cat. I was crying in our kitchen all by myself, when suddenly an unseen presence pierced the small room. I was not used to such intrusions, but that presence brought an unusual peace. Like a quick lightning, a thought occurred in my mind, “I am making all things new.” I knew who had said those words. Could Jesus even care for the grief I felt over the dying of our cat?

More than any other time in my life, I lived through a sense of peace so utterly tranquil, that outwheighed my understanding. It was when my mother lay on the hospital bed, bereft of life and any communion with her family, her friends and her church. Her face looked calm, I was alone in that room. I felt no sorrow yet, no dread or confusion in that sacred segment of time . As if the God I trusted had prepared me to witness my mother’s motionless body. I sat on a chair beside the bed. The nurse had left the room and closed the door. Soon I noticed my mother’s hymnbook. I reached and took it in my hands, I opened page after page; each hymn that I sang was in a melody unknown to me. How long was I there alone singing, an hour or more? I put the hymnbook down and started calling the rest of my family to notify them of her departure from this world. Her going was timely, she was ninety nine.